Hypnotized by Ayn Rand and Reaganomics, Republicans Have Completely Lost Touch with Economic Reality

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http://www.alternet.org/economy/ayn-rand-and-republicans



On September 9th, when Congress returns from its summer vacation, negotiations will begin on a new Federal budget and a U.S. debt limit increase. As a quid pro quo Republicans will demand restrictions on Obamacare. Once again, this raises the specter of the GOP pushing the government into default. Why don't Republicans understand that's a terrible idea that would crater the economy?

Once upon a time, the GOP stood for responsible economic policy. I grew up in a middle-class family in Southern California, where my father and grandfather ran a small business. They were Republicans, as were most of the people we knew. In those days, the GOP attracted the middle class because it was the Party of common sense: it understood business and the economy.

Over the ensuing years the Republican Party abandoned the middle class and become the party of the wealthy -- the one percent. In the '80s, Republicans fell under the spell of Reaganomics. Conservative economists infused American political discourse with three malignant notions: helping the rich get richer would inevitably help everyone else; markets were inherently self correcting; and, "government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem." Reagan's ideology produced deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and powerful, and monopoly capitalism. It resulted in unprecedented income inequality. The American ethos changed from "we're in this together" ("I am my brother's keeper&quot to "you are on your own."

These changes might not factor in the latest crisis if Senators and Representatives understood that the American economy requires a healthy middle class. But these days the average member of Congress is more likely to have had a prior occupation as a lawyer than as a business person. Furthermore 78 percent of Congress people have no academic background in business or economics.